Beef Recipes & Ideas

This time of year it’s all about the long and slow cooking. When it comes to cuts of meat that require a little extra coaxing, both stewing and braising can make tougher cuts — like shanks, brisket, chunk, and round — tender enough to slice with your fork. We always knew they had a soft side. Vegetables, never to be left out of the party, benefit from braising and stewing as well.

You’re making a stew, so you pick up a package marked “stew meat” at the store — makes sense, right? Not so fast. There are a few good reasons you might want to put down that stew meat and pick up another cut instead. Packages of pre-cut stew meat are often assembled by the butcher or meat department from the odds and ends from other different cuts. While this might sound like a good thing — viva varieté!

Knowing how to cook a great steak at home is a skill that every steak-lover should know. Master the basic technique and it’s yours for life — meals at home, fancy date nights, dinner parties, you name it. All you need is a pan and an oven. Check out our video to see how it’s done. This method for oven-cooking steak is one I’ve gone back to again and again. You heat up the skillet under the broiler, and then move it to the stovetop.

Tired of just grilling hamburgers or hot dogs this summer? Ready to try something different than grilled steak? Consider a juicy cut of beef that’s usually reserved for cold-weather braising instead: short ribs. Trust me, they’re worth throwing on the barbecue! Short ribs are usually reserved for braising because they contain a lot of muscle and tendon that needs moist, low heat and a lot of time to cook until tender.

Hot dogs are sold fully cooked, so do you need to grill or heat them? While they are generally safe to eat as is for most people, there are some food safety guidelines to keep in mind when you’re cooking hot dogs. There are some people (pregnant women, older adults, and those with weakened immune systems) who are more at-risk for food-borne illnesses like listeriosis. Heating hot dogs until they are steaming hot will help kill listeria.

The steps for making burgers seem simple enough: Take ground beef, form it into patties, and cook with your preferred method. Since you’re not making meatloaf or meatballs with the ground meat, you don’t need any special seasonings — just some good ol’ salt and pepper. But does it really matter when you season the meat? Can you do it ahead of time, or should you wait until the very last minute? Turns out that timing is actually very important!

What makes a good burger? There have been endless debates about grilling vs. stovetop, size of the patty, bun choice, condiments, cheese, and seasoning, but let’s get down to the very first choice you have to make: buying the ground beef. Start with the right ground beef and you’re well on your way to making a tasty burger, no matter your cooking method or garnishes. When buying beef for burgers, there’s just one basic rule of thumb: Go for ground beef with a high fat content.

A lot of braising or slow-cooked meat recipes have you start off by searing the meat first until it’s brown and crusty on the outside before you add the liquid, turn down the heat, and simmer until tender. For quick-cooking cuts of meat, like flank or skirt steak, searing may be all you have to do before it’s ready to eat. Searing meat is one of those fundamental cooking techniques worth learning, but why does it need to be done?

Whether you use it for hamburgers, meatloaf, or for taco night, ground beef is one of the most popular ways beef is sold, and for good reason. While it’s inexpensive and usually seen as a budget cut, it’s the backbone to many classic American dishes, and even just a small amount can add a lot of meaty flavor to your dish. So where does it come from, and does it matter what kind of ground beef you buy?

If you made a reservation for a fancy Valentine’s Day dinner, now’s the time to cancel it. Staying home for your Valentine’s dinner is the way to go. Splurge on a fancy dinner in your own kitchen! Even if you splurge on a luxurious dinner and a great bottle of wine, it will cost you less at home. For special occasion dinners at home (especially in the middle of winter), a good steak is always my first choice. But, not just any steak will do.

For those just starting to learn how to cook, all the various cuts of meat and ways to cook them can be a bit daunting. Sometimes there’s one method that brings out the best in a cut of meat, like slow-cooking a pork shoulder, but more usually a versatile meat like chicken can be poached, seared, grilled, or roasted and still come out delicious. How do you choose which method to use?

Q: Can I use the leftover broth from corned beef and cabbage in a soup the next day? Sent by Jane Editor: Jane, yes — you may have to add a little more water or stock if the broth is very salty, but it will make a delicious soup. Here are a few more ideas for reusing leftover corned beef braising liquid: → What Can I Do With Leftover Braising Liquid? Readers, what do you do with the leftover broth from a corned beef and cabbage dinner?

Whether you buy a chuck roast to cut up for a pot of stew or you pick up one of those convenient packages of pre-cut stew meat, these budget cuts of beef are known for being tough. But with the right amount of TLC and a few smart tips, you can turn inexpensive stew meat into a richly flavored meal with a surprisingly tender bite. Pound for pound, stew meat is a lot cheaper than pricey cuts, like steaks and short ribs.

Rib-eye is what most of us picture when we think of “steak.” It’s the cut that beckons to you from the meat case as you walk by, tempting you with its swirls of red and white marbling and the snowy cap of fat along the side. Rib-eye is also our top choice when we cook steak at home, whether it’s in a grill pan on the stove or over the flames of a grill.This cut is called a rib-eye because of where it comes from: the rib section of the steer.

It’s fall. It’s chilly. Maybe you have friends or family coming over later. Beef stew is on the menu. It’s tempting to spring for some steak to make your stew extra-special, isn’t it? But, friends, save your pennies because slow-cooked stews are where cheaper cuts really shine. It’s totally counter-intuitive. You know you want tender bites of beef in your soup, so it seems natural to gravitate toward the tender cuts of meat.

Q: I am lucky enough to work at a company that stocks a full kitchen for folks that have to work late to meet deadlines. We recently bought some beef jerky that is WAY salty.No one’s going to eat it by itself, but I hate to see it go to waste. What should I do with it?Sent by LanaEditor: Lana, sometimes cured meat has a salty coating that can be washed off; have you tried rinsing the jerky to make it more palatable?Readers, any thoughts or recipe ideas for this stuff?Next question?

Q: I just bought a side of beef for the first time. I came home and noticed that I have several packages labeled as “boiling beef.” Is this the same as stew meat? Or is this something that I should just treat as scraps and use for making stock? Also, I received the soup bones and am looking forward to making my own beef stock for the first time! But I’ve never done this before — how do you make your own beef stock?

Perusing the meat section at the grocery store this weekend, we spotted an inexpensive package marked “London Broil.” It looked like a flat skirt or flank steak with long muscle fibers and very little marbling. We’ve definitely heard of london broil before, but had trouble placing it. What do you usually cook with london broil?After doing some research at home, we discovered that we definitely aren’t alone in our confusion!

Last week I wrote about a delicious Japanese hotpot called sukiyaki, which requires a block of beef suet to oil the pan before cooking the meat and vegetables. Most people understand that suet is beef fat, but what exactly is it, and what do you do with it? Suet is raw beef fat from around the joints and kidneys that has a low melting point. You can get suet from just about any butcher.

Glance into the meat cases at any grocery store and you’ll see a whole slew of cured meat products, some of which look raw and some of which look like they could survive a cross-country back packing trip. What does “cured” mean for these different products? Let’s take a look.Curing is actually a general term referring to any process that helps preserve meat. It can mean salting, brining, aging, drying or canning.

You know that we love braising, here at The Kitchn. It’s one of our favorite ways to cook meat because it’s easy, hands-off, and foolproof. It also works well on cheaper cuts of meat. We’ve noticed that we tend to braise more pork and lamb than beef, but we miss the great beef braises from our childhood. So we turned to the official Beef Checkoff Culinary Center and their chef, Dave Zino.